futuramafandomcom-20200222-history
Saturday Morning Fun Pit
"Saturday Morning Fun Pit" is the 133rd episode of Futurama and the 6th of Season 10 (broadcast). =Plot= Earth President Richard Nixon and Vice President Headless Clone of Agnew sit down to watch some Saturday morning cartoons starring various re-interperetations of the Futurama crew. Part 1 - "Bendee Boo and the Mystery Crew" It's a parody of the Scooby-Doo series. In this episode the gang (with Hermes Conrad as Freddie, Amy Wong as Velma, Turanga Leela as Daphne, Philip J. Fry I as Shaggy and Bender as Scooby/Bendee) are driving through the Repeating Forest (a reference to the low-rent animation tactics used by Hanna-Barberra) on their way to visit the Professor's Cloning lab. On the way, they are first accosted by a Dragon Ghost which warns them to leave the forrest and subsequently they stop at George Takei's kabuki theater (which has fallen on hard times due to the placement of a basketball arena next door) for a bite to eat. Making their way on to the cloning lab, where Zoidberg is the Professor's anti-cloning butler and the Harlem Globetrotters are visiting in order to have a team of 5 clones of Larry Bird made in order to practice against. While staying overnight, nearly every Scooby Doo trope is paid homage to, culminating in a two-part reveal which results in the decapitation of Zoidberg (as though the Mystery Crew expected his real head to be a removable mask) and they discover that Takei is the one who did it because he figured if the Globetrotters couldn't play, people would come to his kabuki theater instead (which was true), but Takei says that he did it because he is mentally ill (which was not true). The Trotters go on to their scheduled local basketball game, which turns out to be against a team of SIX Larry Birds. Part 2 - "Purpleberry Pond" The crowd outside the White House grows violent and throws a brick through the window. Nixon's solution is to watch Purpleberry Pond-after putting in a call to Hollywood that the public want the government to regulate children's programming to have helpful lessons shoehorned in. In Purpleberry Pond, life is idyllic and everyone and everything are a shade of violet. The characters encourage "healthy" eating, having fun with others and not judging people because they're different. Throughout there are commercials for Purpleberry Puffs cereal, a new variety of cereal being introduced whenever a new character is introduced, with a sub-narrative wherein the child in the commercials becomes obese and is implied to have developed Type II diabetes. For example, when "Lord Loquat" is introduced, "orange berry" pieces are added to the cereal and when the Berry Burglar (Professor Farnsworth in a role analogous more to Gargamel from the Smurfs rather the Purple Pie Man from Strawberry Shortcake) fires a sugarball bomb at Purpleberry Pond, the cereal introduces its new "Sugar-blasted" pops. Part 3 - "G.I. Zapp" Lastly, Nixon and Agnew begin to watch the G.I. Zapp cartoon, but find after a few minutes that it is, as the rioting crowd outside says, too violent. Nixon creatively re-edits the cartoon (using a device which is implied to have played a part in Nixon's historical erasing of Oval Office tapes.) In Nixon's version, the violently code-named GI Zapp members are re-christened, more innocent explanations for violent actions are narrated in Nixon's voice (e.g., a version of water-boarding is made bobbing for apples and footage is run backwards to create "bullet sucking tanks.") When "Orphan Crippler's" (Bender's) chest cavity opens to reveal what appears to be a giant Killamajig from Chapek 9 or a Fleen from Omicron Persei 8, set to violently dispatch of an enemy soldier, Nixon gives up and censors to a GI Joe style PSA about sharing instead of fighting featuring Dwight, Cubert and Nixon and Agnew themselves, riding up on a motorcycle and sidecar and tearing in half the football that the children had just been arguing over, culminating in a rainbow-against-a-starscape catchphrase, "Now you know something!" Category:Episodes Category:Season Seven Category:Season 7 Category:Fry Episodes Category:Leela Episodes Category:Bender Episodes Category:Farnsworth Episodes Category:Amy Episodes Category:Hermes Episodes Category:Zapp Brannigan episodes Category:Anthology Episodes Category:Anthology